Crude weakens on unexpected rise in US stocks

12 December 2012 16:04[Source: ICIS news]

LONDON (ICIS)--Crude oil fell by around 70 cents/bbl on Wednesday, eroding earlier gains, when this week’s US stock figures showed an unexpected gain on crude and larger than forecast gains on products.?xml:namespace>

January NYMEX light sweet crude futuresfell from around $86.75/bbl before the figures from the Energy Information Administration(EIA) were published to around $86.05/bbl, still a gain of 26 cents/bbl from Tuesday’s close

However, they then regained a little ground and at 15:45 GMT, January NYMEX crude was trading around $86.20/bbl, up 41 cents/bbl from Tuesday’s close of $85.79/bbl.

On ICE Futures, January Brent also lost ground, falling from around $109.65/bbl before the figures were published to around $109.05/bbl. At 15:45 GMT, January Brent was trading around $109.10/bbl, up $1.09/bbl from Tuesday’s close of $108.01/bbl.

Analysts’ predictions for this week’s US stock figures were that they would show a draw on crude stocks of about 1.9m bbl, a build on distillate of around 1.5m bbl and a build on gasoline of around 1.9m bbl.

The American Petroleum Institute (API) figures were published late on Tuesday.